Joseph Ewart Lymn was one of Charles and Anne’s (née Payne) twelve children; he was born in Oldbury, Worcestershire on 18th August 1886 and had four sisters and seven brothers.

On his 18th birthday in 1904, Joseph signed up for twelve years in the Royal Navy, but after five years he bought himself out of the service becoming a member of the Royal Fleet Reserve on 9th September 1909. After leaving the navy, Joseph also worked for a short period at St Audry’s Hospital as an attendant alongside Charles Buxton, the husband of his eldest sister, Annie Winifred.

On 5th January 1911, he married Eva Mason in Ipswich and, later in the year, the couple moved to Leeds. It was here their first child, Vivian Ewart, was born, but sadly died soon after. Eva and Joseph then moved to Wolverhampton, close to where Joseph’s family was living, and it was here that their second son, Kenneth, was born on 24th December 1912.

In July 1914, Joseph was away on his annual training exercise with the Royal Fleet Reserve when it became apparent that war was imminent. As a result, he was retained at a shore camp in readiness to join the HMS Good Hope on 31st July 1914; the ship was posted to the Pacific Ocean, via Cape Horn.

On 1st November 1914, the opening naval battle of the First World War took place in the Pacific, off the coast of Chile and the city of Coronel. The German ships, including the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, were far more powerful than the ships of the British 4th Cruiser Squadron and they soon sank both the HMS Good Hope and the HMS Monmouth with the loss of all hands.

On the 1st September 1914, while he was sailing to the Pacific, Joseph and Eva’s third child, Joseph Jellicoe Lymn, was born, but lived for only sixteen days. As a consequence of the stress and trauma of losing both her newborn child and husband in such a short period, Eva suffered a nervous breakdown. She left her surviving son, Kenneth, to be brought up by his grandparents. Kenneth received a pension from the Royal Navy on account of his father’s death in service until 1928. This was paid to his grandfather Charles.

Joseph Ewart Lymn is remembered on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial in Hampshire, the memorial in Beckminster Methodist Church, Pennfields in Wolverhampton, and on a family memorial in the St Phillip’s Churchyard also in Pennfields. For his war service, Joseph’s family received the 1914-15 Star and the British War and Victory Medals.